2014 Membership Update - News from Smed!

Ok thanks for clearing that up, however I still play my SoE acct and dont have a Pro7 one. Last I remember when they switched they said you were not forced to switch that it wasnt mandatory. Did that change? Hope not because I currently have over 10 lvl 95s and If they arent allowing you to bring over your toons that would be the END of my EQ2 relationship! lol I have put too much time into this game to start over

Considering they have to make these changes because of tax laws (which SoE have no control over, FYI) I'm pretty happy about it.

Thank you for posting this. It all makes sense now.

That actually makes sense. Seems to me, there's no way to tell if that 500sc we were being given was something we bought or something we were awarded, and it makes it so that the company has to pay tax on it. So now, if we get the 2000 sc voucher of sorts.. instead of SC it makes it less of a tax nightmare for the book keepers. If I am understanding that right, anyway.

So basically, accountants are ruining the membership benefits.

However, how does this impact the fact that the SC being given away is Free, and we aren't technically buying it?
I'm assuming that the new system will be basically jumping through a loophole, in which by giving away virtual items, accountants don't have to deal with the SC process, and as such makes it a whole lot easier? If so, I do believe there could be much better ways of implementing this using existing forms. Aka instead of giving away 1 free item a month, you give away 20 Goblin Gold (Recycling, rejoice treehuggers ), and give every item in the Marketplace a value of Goblin gold as well. That way, if players wanted a big item, they could get it for 20, or get 20 little items for 1 each.

had this been released before or even with the announcement i think a lot of this could have been avoided. here's the quote Smedley for those not following the link:

"I agree with you sadly accountants around the world have decided (starting with the IRS) that the accounting for virtual items is done not even when we sell you the item (in most cases). If a person tops up $100 in their wallet.... and then promptly spend $50 of it... we can't even recognize that $50 in the month we sell the items. we have to spread it over the expected lifetime of the player (yes we still have the cash). That's actually how the accounting for these things works. And that extra $50 if it's never spent sits on our books.
For those of you that think this method of accounting seems backwards... it is. I agree with you. The irony here is more and more states are starting to charge sales tax on virtual items.
Imagine this scenario - we don't have to imagine btw.. we live it.
Same guy as above spends $100 to top up SC in Texas (one of the states that implemented this early).
He waits a year before he spends it because maybe he's overseas on duty or something. We have to remit the sales tax on that $100 but we are unable to recognize any of that revenue until it's spent.
I don't want to make this sound melodramatic. I just want people to recognize we aren't making these decisions inside of a bubble where we aren't aware that these decisions can have meaningful impact on players spending and their desire to play. I just want you all to better understand the "why" even if you disagree it."

if i am not mistaken ... i checked marketplace some hours ago:
the items you can buy with goblin gold already do have a sc pricetag, too. So yes - that wouldn't even require much action at all.
Well .. at least not for eq2 (besides having to add GoblinGold prices to every item that currently has none). This would be only an ingame-currency like plat ...

for the other games involved - well - they could have GoblinGold, PlanetDrops, ... whatever ...

that's the issue really, it's not the accountants it's the growing diverse body of tax law that is beginning to grow up around the exchange of virtual goods and virtual currency. that's just not something they have any control over.

i *really* wish they had said this at the start. it makes no sense why the didn't and makes me wonder about the people making these marketing decisions.

I have a feeling all of this has something to do with PS2 and EQN being ported to the PS4.

Maybe Sony want SoE to work cross platform on all big and new titles. Hence they would have to make a fairer subscription plan to cater for the PS4 player base... Maybe?

Just an idea.

We still get screwed though, that goes without saying ofc.

Cx~

Edit: I fecking hate consoles GRRR

I get the tax thing (a pity Smed didn't just say so in the first place, its not some special company secret after all). The flannel about it being an improvement was seen through in 2 mins and a lot of player anger would have been avoided. A bit of honesty goes a long way.

So I guess its OK to give us a free item, so can't we get a choice of one big (up to 2000SC value) or multiple smaller items?

What exactly is SOE losing if a subscriber who is paying $15/month saves up a ton of SC without spending it? No matter how much they "accrue" they're STILL only buying VIRTUAL goods that do not physically cost SOE anything at all beyond the initial design (which they'd be doing anyway). What's the difference whether gold members spend some regularly or save up and buy a bunch of items all at once? It's still virtual goods.

I thought the goal of these perks was to give gold members incentive to keep paying that monthly fee to keep the games going and staff paid. Telling people they can only get one virtual item per month instead of multiple smaller virtual items they might find more useful is a disincentive.

Ever occur to that this is the reason why they are getting rid of goblin tokens as well? You can't 'mask' or loophole through the problem by coming up with another currency that does the same exact thing but isn't buyable with cash.

Long winded.. so sit tight (TL;DR - Scroll to the bottom)

But its not "Anything i want upto 2000SC" when its 1 item, 1 item ONLY, and not what I want, not the WAY i want it.

Really? your primary (first and foremost) REASON for this change is to be able to give us more big ticket items? And the added argument was that we, WE the players, where complaining we didnt get ENOUGH free SC? .... Let me think about that for a second .. done Really? if your kid complains their allowance isn't enough for them to get them that shiny new BIG Priced toy your solution is to .. give it to them? No, didnt think so, Ive felt the tough love of SOE before... i dont think that logic adds up, just my 2cents of course, but ill solve it for you!- see below.

Why is it a problem specifically? how i choose to spend my allowance, how i choose to be a scrooge and save or how i choose to spend every 500 every month should never be an issue. Heck ill admit im one, i got like 20K SC on one of my accounts from back when there where STILL x3 SC promotions ... i use them for services and such but i dont decorate. But ill solve that for you as well - see below.

I dont see how this changes that at all? Unless you ADD the ability to use SC to those console titles then that disparity will not fade, nor will promotions be 'even'. After all PC titles HAVE SC stores...Console titles do not, the only way to fix that is to even the playing field, either add SC to console titles... OR..

/Tinfoil hat on
unless SC is going away TOTALLY it will still be there for PC games as mentioned, it will still be unavailable to Console titles/players. Your change does nothing to address this, unless this is the beginning of the end of SC marketplace as we know it which would even out the Disparity of the above statement.
/Tinfoil hat off

2nd part of above, there have been no x3 SC events since 2012... infact i think most observers where of the conviction that it wouldn't happen again and that the 'half price'/'rebate' system was how it was done now.
Anyway... ill fix this too - see below.

Nice one. I can handle the logic of this, however

[THIS IS BELOW!]
Instead of irrationally changing the logic of the SC - unless the above tinfoil hat statement is true - how about this :
Instead of adding a voucher for each game type worth the equivalent of 2000SC you add a game specific currency.
Lets play with that thought and call them EQ2 Bucks (i was tempted to use smedbucks but ..)
So my EQ2 bucks wallet gets filled to 2000 every billing cycle, and whenever i purchase ANYTHING in EQ2 my EQ2 bucks wallet gets used FIRST and then my SC Wallet if needed. If my EQ2 bucks wallet is empty, well it all gets deducted from my SC Wallet. And we do this for EACH AND EVERY GAME.

Now rest assured .. i know this is no small change, but but but your already making a huge change to the SC system by adding the voucher, and making a list of items, flagging items which is a continual investment of time and effort because new items gets added regularly etc etc etc where as ... this is "simple" straight forward accounting code which (all things being equal etc) should be straight forward to add in.
Lets look back...
Does it fulfill the your goals?
1: Let people buy big items, and stop complaining that their allowance is to small, HECK yeah
2: Stops the Accrual of SC and still gives me incentive to purchase SC cards? HECK YEAH!
3: Even the disparity between titles, but ... YES it does, exactly the same way the other change does
4: Allow you to go forward with that plan WITHOUT totally diluting the SC currency, oh Heck HECK HECK yeah.
5: Will your players like it? ... they just might like it you know, because its actually an improvement?

And yes, your more than free to do it this way, im not looking for royalties

So give us the 2000 SC to use in a month however we see fit? If we want to buy one item for 2000 sc, or 10 items for 200 each, we should still have that choice.

Again what is not spent, or claimed, at the end of the month could still vanish making the above a moot point.

Tbh we should not have to follow threads outside of this forum, to get information that affects us, on EQ2.
It would be really nice to think SoE value our custom.

You'd likely have to completely devalue it and any resemblance to a monetary transaction. If it looks like money, smells like money, could be used as money or someday be turned into money, the taxmen are looking for ways to get their cut. Goblin "Gold", or anything to do with the marketplace probably wouldn't elude them.

The decision to remove Goblin Gold was a result of the decision to remove Goblin Tickets. This was done outside the corporate initiative of membership changes.

Any currency added that can perform the same function as SC will be subject to the same tax problems.

Until we see what is on the list of what can be bought with the 2k voucher, we won't know if this is good or bad.

in a way - yes.
but for dcuo they obviously can do that - right? So it appears to me that this truly could be an option.
Well - maybe they would need two separate marketplaces so you don't see at once the relationship between sc and the "ingame-only"-currency. (don't know how that works with dcuo)

in eq for example we have "crowns" - a loyality currency you get for being a customer for soandsolong. it has a special vendor where you can spend those items and it even offers character slots, bags, ...
So - one could simply rotate items between marketplace and the "ingame-currency"-vendor every now and then ...

The same tax problemes... this is joke
People pay tax evrey year tax upped
Your company don't want to pay tax
the consumers are the victim not your company
Stop the joke
The tax not apologies for this change in the sub